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  • Winter 2023
  • Article
  • Daedalus

Moral Firms?

By: Rebecca Henderson
  • | Pages:14
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Abstract

Building a new political economy requires transforming our markets, our institutions, and our policy and regulatory regimes. In this essay, I argue that it also requires transforming the purpose of the firm: from a singular focus on maximizing financial returns to the recognition that firms exist to support human flourishing, with profits merely a means to an end. I suggest that this transformation is already under way and indeed that it may help support fundamental change in the wider society, but that significant shifts in law, policy, and in the social and normative context are almost certainly essential if this new model is to become the norm.

Keywords

Transformation; Mission and Purpose; Economy

Citation

Henderson, Rebecca. "Moral Firms?" Daedalus 152, no. 1 (Winter 2023): 198–211.
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About The Author

Rebecca M. Henderson

General Management
→More Publications

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    A Political Economy of Justice

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    Innovation in the 21st Century: Architectural Change, Purpose, and the Challenges of Our Time

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More from the Author
  • Firms, Morality, and the Search for a Better World By: Rebecca Henderson
  • A Political Economy of Justice By: Danielle Allen, Yochai Benkler, Leah Downey, Rebecca Henderson and Joshua Simons
  • Innovation in the 21st Century: Architectural Change, Purpose, and the Challenges of Our Time By: Rebecca Henderson
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